The Current Irrelevance of Spec Comparisons

[Scotfo]

Hi Everyone! At this time there is no definitive way to say which spec deals more damage. We currently have no access to combat log or damage parsers to record damage being done. A popular theory currently being propagated is that Gunnery performs more DPS on single targets. This theory is largely supported with references to several key skills in gunnery; namely: Grav Round, Rotary Cannon, Charged Barrel, and Demo Round. These skills, and the fact that Gunnery uses armor piercing rounds, does seem to make Gunnery look more appealing at first glance.

 

However, there are a lot of assumptions being made about how certain mechanics work that are not based on fact. A primary example of this would be how Armor Piercing Cell works. Many people are operating under the assumption that APC (Armor Piercing Cell) causes all your attacks to ignore 35% of you enemy's armor. In reality the tooltip states: "armor penetration is increased by 35%". This implies that there is some sort of armor penetration mechanic in place in SWTOR and we are not yet able to figure out how much armor is ignored vs how much armor penetration you have. Please note that skills that ignore armor, like High Friction Bolts, specifically state that a percentage of armor is ignored.

 

Then we have Grav Round. Grav Round's 20% reduction to armor rating does not translate into a 20% increase in DPS. Let's use a hypothetical: We'll say an enemy has 3000 armor rating and this gives him 30% damage reduction. In this case 100 armor rating gives 1% damage reduction. Grav Round lowers that amount by 20% giving the enemy 2400 armor rating and bringing the damage reduction down to 24%. This would mean that, in this hypothetical situation, grav round only provides a 6% increase in DPS. Some math wiz out there can probably figure out the specifics using the information available to us in our character window to extrapolate how much Armor equates to damage reduction. I'm guessing the actual DPS increase will end up somewhere in the 5%-9% range.

 

I believe that one of the single greatest contributors to the belief that gunnery does much more single target damage is: People who play gunnery feel like they are killing things faster. This comes at no surprise when you consider how much smoother it is to get into a sustainable rotation with Gunnery and many people find AS a bit difficult to sustain a rotation with. When a person can pick up a rotation with ease and keep it going consistently, they will inevitably perform with better results. You compare this to AS where there isn't really a rotation but more of a priority system; things become more difficult to keep track of (especially without mods available to help). Let us not forget AS has more micromanaging of DoT's and has to attempt to proc improved HIB off Full Auto and Charged Bolt as much as possible.

 

Now we come to AS. There is currently no available in-depth analysis of how much a benefit the various flame dots from Plasma Cell, Incendiary Shot, and Plasma Grenade will provide as an over-all source of AS's total damage; or how much of an advantage all of that elemental damage (which ignore most armor) will provide. We have no way of measuring how much elemental damage resistances bosses have(if any) at this point. I have also been unable to find any math to show what kind of a DPS increase AS receives from casting more HIB's then gunnery. Keep in mind that HIB is one of the most ammo efficient and hardest hitting instant cast ability's we have. In the case of AS, HIB proc's from Full auto and Charged Bolt cost nothing and create a free ammo cell providing a source of ammo regeneration. There has also been no accurate math done regarding how much AS spec's DPS increases on boss fight where the boss is at 30% health or lower (during which time all DoT's tick for an additional 30% damage) when compared to Gunnery providing a constant source of damage that remains the same through the majority of the fight.

 

The primary point I am making is as follows: Nobody can accurately assert that one spec is superior to another at this time and there has been a lot of incomplete math floating around. All variables have not yet been taken into account and some variables are simply unavailable to us right now. We are all operating on observations and speculations currently. Until we have access to combat logs/damage parsers we simply do not have the hard data to back up any of these theory's with any real degree of certainty. Once we gain access to some sort of combat log we will begin to be able to make much more accurate and definitive conclusions. Until then, all this debate is rather pointless and players should just pick whichever playstyle they are more comfortable with.

 

**EDIT**

Though I personally don't have issues with "Walls of Text", apparently it gives some people headaches. In the intrest of better health(and taking some constructive critism) I have added more lines of space to create paragraphs! Voila!

Edited December 30, 2011 by Scotfo

[altiris]

Wall of text crits you for...

 

Not sure who is saying that Gunnery is better than AS? Haven't seen much of it.

 

Not sure what you are getting at about Armor-piercing Cell being ambiguous. We get Armor-piercing Cell at level 12, 8 levels before we could possibly get armor penetration from anything else. What else could it possibly mean besides 35% armor penetration?

[Scotfo]

Wall of text crits you for...

 

Not sure who is saying that Gunnery is better than AS? Haven't seen much of it.

 

Not sure what you are getting at about Armor-piercing Cell being ambiguous. We get Armor-piercing Cell at level 12, 8 levels before we could possibly get armor penetration from anything else. What else could it possibly mean besides 35% armor penetration?

 

Sometimes in-depth opinion requires more then 3 sentence paraphrased paragraph's. Intelligent people are generally concerned with the points contained within statements and are patient enough to read them. I'm not saying your not intelligent, I'm simply stating my view on posting and what I base my decision to read them on.

 

I have seen quite a few post on the Gunnery vs Assault subject. I'm sure if you dug a little deeper you'd see them cropping up all over the place. Remember, not all post that end up revolving around a Gunnery vs AS say so in the subject title.

 

Using the reasoning "What else could it be" does not mean it *is*. The fact is, we simply do not know. We do not have the data available or word from the Dev's that give us a definitive answer. I would love to have access to more of this data so I could make a more informed choice on my spec.

 

**edit**

I mis-read your last statement. My OP says that it is indeed "Armor Penetration". My point was that Armor Penetration can mean multiple things. In WoW it was a mechanic that allowed you to by-pass a certain amount of armor rating. However, 35% increased armor penetration indicates it raises whatever Armor penetration stat you currently have. So if you had 100 armor penetration that allowed you to ignore 10% of an enemies armor. An additional 35% Armor Penetration would raise your armor penetration to 125 allowing you to bypass 37.5% of the enemies armor.

If it was just bad wording on Biowares part and it does in fact *ignore* 35% of the enemies total armor then it would be significantly better.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Scotfo

[NomineImperator]

Sometimes in-depth opinion requires more then 3 sentence paraphrased paragraph's. Intelligent people are generally concerned with the points contained within statements and are patient enough to read them. I'm not saying your not intelligent, I'm simply stating my view on posting and what I base my decision to read them on.

 

I have seen quite a few post on the Gunnery vs Assault subject. I'm sure if you dug a little deeper you'd see them cropping up all over the place. Remember, not all post that end up revolving around a Gunnery vs AS say so in the subject title.

 

Using the reasoning "What else could it be" does not mean it *is*. The fact is, we simply do not know. We do not have the data available or word from the Dev's that give us a definitive answer. I would love to have access to more of this data so I could make a more informed choice on my spec.

 

What you posted first is not a in-depth opinion. It is indeed a wall of text. Most people (including myself) will refuse to read that until you break it up into a few paragraphs first. I actually get a headache trying to read walls on computer screens.

 

I am not commenting (for obvious reasons) on the content of your post. You may very well have a perfectly good opinion/case/whatever, just pointing out something that may help get your point across. ^_-

[Scotfo]

What you posted first is not a in-depth opinion. It is indeed a wall of text. Most people (including myself) will refuse to read that until you break it up into a few paragraphs first. I actually get a headache trying to read walls on computer screens.

 

I am not commenting (for obvious reasons) on the content of your post. You may very well have a perfectly good opinion/case/whatever, just pointing out something that may help get your point across. ^_-

 

Point taken. I've broken my post up a bit to make it easier on the eyes.

[hadoken]

However, there are a lot of assumptions being made about how certain mechanics work that are not based on fact. A primary example of this would be how Armor Piercing Cell works. Many people are operating under the assumption that APC (Armor Piercing Cell) causes all your attacks to ignore 35% of you enemy's armor. In reality the tooltip states: "armor penetration is increased by 35%". This implies that there is some sort of armor penetration mechanic in place in SWTOR and we are not yet able to figure out how much armor is ignored vs how much armor penetration you have. Please note that skills that ignore armor, like High Friction Bolts, specifically state that a percentage of armor is ignored.

 

First Responder says in the tooltip that it increases alacrity 5%, however in practice what it does is GIVE you 5% alacrity. There is no reason to believe that Armor Piercing Cell works differently, as 35% of 0% (we have no innate armor penetration) is completely useless. This appears to be like...intentional ignorance to me.

 

Honestly you're trying to obfuscate the issue and claim that we just cannot know how one performs vs another. That's ********, you don't need a combat log to see how powerful something is. All you need is Time To Kill. That is the easiest test of all, just go kill a bunch of same level mobs solo (strongs work for this) then change specs and do the exact same thing on the exact same mob in the exact same gear. Your TTK will determine which spec does more DPS. Strongs should live long enough solo for you to get full rotations off on for testing.

[Scotfo]

First Responder says in the tooltip that it increases alacrity 5%, however in practice what it does is GIVE you 5% alacrity. There is no reason to believe that Armor Piercing Cell works differently, as 35% of 0% (we have no innate armor penetration) is completely useless. This appears to be like...intentional ignorance to me.

 

Honestly you're trying to obfuscate the issue and claim that we just cannot know how one performs vs another. That's ********, you don't need a combat log to see how powerful something is. All you need is Time To Kill. That is the easiest test of all, just go kill a bunch of same level mobs solo (strongs work for this) then change specs and do the exact same thing on the exact same mob in the exact same gear. Your TTK will determine which spec does more DPS. Strongs should live long enough solo for you to get full rotations off on for testing.

 

"Time to kill" differs person from person and you have no facts to back up your statements. Also, you must have mis-read some part of my post. Alacrity *is* Alacrity of course. Armor penetration *is* armor penetration of course. The issue is on how Bioware implements armor penetration as a mechanic. I give a pretty definitive example above in my my first response to altiris. All your statements are anecdotal and based on your personal observations. You need to provide either a Dev's statement or hard data recorded by a combat log. The later is currently impossible to provide as combat logs do not exist. Come back with either of those and I will take you seriously.

**Edit**

Typos!

Edited December 31, 2011 by Scotfo

[hadoken]

"Time to kill" differs person from person and you have no facts to back up your statements. Also, you must have mis-read some part of my post. Alacrity *is* Alacrity of course. Armor penetration *is* armor penetration of course. The issue is on how Bioware implements armor penetration as a mechanic. I give a pretty definitive example above in my my first response to altiris. All your statements are anecdotal and based on your personal observations. You need to provide either a Dev's statement or hard data recorded by a combat log. The later is currently impossible to provide as combat logs do not exist. Come back with either of those and I will take you seriously.

**Edit**

Typos!

 

Since you're convinced we can't figure out how the game works without having our hands held by the devs it's clear discussing this rationally with you is impossible.

 

note: TTK for the SAME player SAME gear SAME mobs different specs would eliminate all the variables except what the specs provide.

 

i.e. precisely what it is you're looking for, but apparently too blind to see

[LordKivlov]

Since you're convinced we can't figure out how the game works without having our hands held by the devs it's clear discussing this rationally with you is impossible.

 

note: TTK for the SAME player SAME gear SAME mobs different specs would eliminate all the variables except what the specs provide.

 

i.e. precisely what it is you're looking for, but apparently too blind to see

 

Except it doesn't account for a long PvE fight where one build could do less damage, but have better over-all ammo conservation and over that entire fight, leave you doing less hammershots and more damage in total. For shorter and burst fights (like PvP or minibosses, trash mobs etc.) it will work fine but you generally want to maximise your damage on the longer fights since trash folds like a wet paper towel and so do the mini-bosses.

 

Generally why when people theory craft, they test over 5+ minute durations.

Edited December 31, 2011 by LordKivlov

[hadoken]

Except it doesn't account for a long PvE fight where one build could do less damage, but have better over-all ammo conservation and over that entire fight, leave you doing less hammershots and more damage in total. For shorter and burst fights (like PvP or minibosses, trash mobs etc.) it will work fine but you generally want to maximise your damage on the longer fights since trash folds like a wet paper towel and so do the mini-bosses.

 

Generally why when people theory craft, they test over 5+ minute durations.

 

Right, and also with mobs attacking you full auto gets the shaft (doing 33% less damage) so the benefit shifts to assault when comparing PVE dps. It certainly isn't perfect but I still maintain you can do SOME testing and get an idea. I really don't buy the "oh we don't know anything until the devs tell us" argument the OP is postulating.

[Scotfo]

Right, and also with mobs attacking you full auto gets the shaft (doing 33% less damage) so the benefit shifts to assault when comparing PVE dps. It certainly isn't perfect but I still maintain you can do SOME testing and get an idea. I really don't buy the "oh we don't know anything until the devs tell us" argument the OP is postulating.

 

Many responses you have made. No facts or math to back up anything you say. You can disagree all you want. Whether you agree with me or not is irrelevant. What is relevant, is that if you had a valid counter point with any kind of mathematical backing or something more substantial then anecdotal evidence; I would actually be interested in what you have to say. All you have at the moment is an opinion.

 

I am not blind, as you put it. I simply refuse to accept the blurry picture (and any assertions about the specs without Data/Fact is a blurry picture at best) that you seem content to base your decisions on. I'm willing to wait until the veil is lifted and I can see all the facts before coming to a conclusion.

 

I see no reason to respond further to you at this point. When and if you are able to provide something a bit more solid; I would be happy to hear what you have to say.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Scotfo

[Ronamo]

I believe that one of the single greatest contributors to the belief that gunnery does much more single target damage is: People who play gunnery feel like they are killing things faster. This comes at no surprise when you consider how much smoother it is to get into a sustainable rotation with Gunnery and many people find AS a bit difficult to sustain a rotation with. When a person can pick up a rotation with ease and keep it going consistently, they will inevitably perform with better results. You compare this to AS where there isn't really a rotation but more of a priority system; things become more difficult to keep track of (especially without mods available to help). Let us not forget AS has more micromanaging of DoT's and has to attempt to proc improved HIB off Full Auto and Charged Bolt as much as possible.

 

I find it rather odd that you don't see Gunnery's ability usage as a priority system, instead insisting that it is a rotation. Treating the ability usage as a rotation is contraindicative to multiple other analyses of its damage, my own included.

 

With one debuff, one buff, one proc affected cooldown, and two non proc affected cooldowns involved, trying to treat it as a rotation will not be productive.

[Scotfo]

I find it rather odd that you don't see Gunnery's ability usage as a priority system, instead insisting that it is a rotation. Treating the ability usage as a rotation is contraindicative to multiple other analyses of its damage, my own included.

 

With one debuff, one buff, one proc affected cooldown, and two non proc affected cooldowns involved, trying to treat it as a rotation will not be productive.

 

Hi Ronamo! I was not insisting that Gunnery should use a rotation or that this is the optimal way to play. What I did state, is that it is easy for people to fall into a sustainable rotation with Gunnery. I usually see people falling into something similar to a Plasma Grenade -> Full Auto -> Grav round -> Grav round -> Grav round -> High Impact Bolt -> Demolition round -> Full auto rotation (or something similar). I never stated that I believed this to be the best way to play the tree.There's actually a thread on it by Siedler somewhere around.

 

That was not the point I was trying to get across though. The point I was attempting to make is that is much easier for most people to maintain a sustainable chain of damaging abilities with Gunnery then it is with AS. When people using gunnery can perform a easy and sustainable source of damage they generally perform better then those attempting to manually keep track of a priority system. Please keep in mind we do not yet have the data to definitely show what ranking AS abilities should have on the priority list. I hope this clarifies my position a bit better!

Edited January 1, 2012 by Scotfo

[Ghrex]

Gunnery is the better PvE spec. Why? The grav round debuff is just not increasing your dps, it's increasing your entire raid/group dps. AS has nothing like that. Also, if you have multiple gunnery Commando's, you get multuple stacks of the grav round debuff. I am not sure if they stack or not, but if they do, then that's pretty much a game over for what spec is better. AS's only shining monent is during high mobility raid boss fights, where you don't have much time to sit and turret.

AS also suffers from ammo problems if your procs are not cooperating.

 

Gunnery doesn't really have a rotation, much like every other spec in the game, it has a priority list, like this for single targets.

 

FA and (CoF Procs)> Grav round til x5 stacks > HIB at 5 barrel charges > Demo Round.

 

You will always want to open with FA in fights where you have a tank, this is because if you start with grav round and get a CoF proc, it's just pretty much wasted. You need to put FA on cool down, then you start your grav rounds and if you get a CoF proc, it takes your FA off cool down and gives the bonus damage as well. More bang for your buck.

[Scotfo]

Gunnery is the better PvE spec. Why? The grav round debuff is just not increasing your dps, it's increasing your entire raid/group dps. AS has nothing like that. Also, if you have multiple gunnery Commando's, you get multuple stacks of the grav round debuff. I am not sure if they stack or not, but if they do, then that's pretty much a game over for what spec is better. AS's only shining monent is during high mobility raid boss fights, where you don't have much time to sit and turret.

AS also suffers from ammo problems if your procs are not cooperating.

 

Gunnery doesn't really have a rotation, much like every other spec in the game, it has a priority list, like this for single targets.

 

FA and (CoF Procs)> Grav round til x5 stacks > HIB at 5 barrel charges > Demo Round.

 

You will always want to open with FA in fights where you have a tank, this is because if you start with grav round and get a CoF proc, it's just pretty much wasted. You need to put FA on cool down, then you start your grav rounds and if you get a CoF proc, it takes your FA off cool down and gives the bonus damage as well. More bang for your buck.

 

You've got some excellent points here. This was actually something I was looking at when I first tried to do my own personal theorycrafting. Then I ran into some variables I had no answers for that stopped me from coming to a solid conclusion.

 

We do not know, as an absolute, if the armor reduction does stack with similar abilities of the other classes tanking tree's. Secondly, if it does stack, then does it stack with other commando's Grav Well's to? If all these abilities do stack it would make it very simple to render a boss to 0 armor, and seem to make the benefit from Armor Piercing Round irrelevant as there would be no armor left to pierce. Also, if Grav Well stacks with other classes armor reduction de-buff but not with other commando's; any benefit gained from the first gunnery spec'd commando in the raid would make the Grav Well provided from other Gunnery commando's irrelevant. Without definitive data to answering these points we don't know for sure how much of a benefit Grav Well actually is and in what circumstances it could best be exploited.

 

Also, just to nip this in the bud. I am not making any cases about rotations or priority lists. I think I cleared up my view on all that in my response to Ronamo. Though on a separate note I think you've thought out your own priority list quite well and seems like it would perform well.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Scotfo

[Ghrex]

I would also like to point out that while AS has by FAR the best mobility in PvP, their damage is not only dispellable, it's also easily healed through. So while it's an awesome spec for both escaping melee and 1v1's, I just found that I brought no pressure at all to a pre-made, organized WZ. Having your burning effects dispelled is so terribly annoying....

 

I do believe however, that both specs play a role in an organized WZ. If you have healing backup and are able to hang back a bit, then gunnery is great for bringing that really heavy burst damage to scare the **** out of healers and blowing up ball carriers. Make sure to stay up on platforms and high ground, so you can use your talented conc force to knock them back down in order to get distance.

 

AS brings an obsurdly annoying snare by just using hammer shot constantly. AS also helps your healers because you can move around and take less damage, while peeling melee off the healers at the same time. AS is also great in Void Star and Alder because people can't cap when they are burning from your DoTs.

[Rexking]

I call out for the devs to give us an answer about how does Armor Penetration works. This is an issue that is beyond just the Trooper Class.

[EthicsGradient]

I call out for the devs to give us an answer about how does Armor Penetration works. This is an issue that is beyond just the Trooper Class.

 

Or, um, test it yourself with a pal.

[Acupunk]

You are making this way too hard.

1.Duel with a friend that doesnt attack back.

2. turn on 35% ability

3. only attack friend with the freebie no energy ability.

 

4. turn off 35% abilty

5. (see step 3 above)

 

check damage difference

 

do above steps with friend in armor and then naked. (your friends toon naked not you)

[ArchangelLBC]

Someone wants to run AS in PVE but doesn't want to be considered gimp imo =P

 

(j/k btw Scotfo, I know you're good peeps)

 

 

My intuition from how grav rounds work is that if you have two commandos both buffs will stack for the purposes of armor reduction, but not for the purposes of buffing demo round which gets an increase in damage per vortex on target and leads me to believe it has to be your vortex. If this isn't true and demo round's buff stacks per commando that'd be pretty hilarious, although the truth is that on anything where it would matter I'm not sure you'd have that many commandos except perhaps on Operations. On Hard modes I don't see why you'd want both your DPS to have no interrupt, but that's just me.

 

 

Keep in mind that HIB is one of the most ammo efficient and hardest hitting instant cast ability's we have. In the case of AS, HIB proc's from Full auto and Charged Bolt cost nothing and create a free ammo cell providing a source of ammo regeneration

 

One of our endgame gear sets (I forget which) makes HIB free for everyone really so from that perspective it doesn't matter, a full auto which crits actually regens ammo since you should regen the 2 ammo it cost to use while casting it and if it crits it regens another 1 ammo, and a Grav round which crits without immediately following another grav round which crits is also essentially free. This is yet another one of those variables that we just don't have a good handle on and given the RNG nature of Cell Charger the answer will be only statistically accurate which isn't the best but it should be noted that the longer a fight goes the more statistics reflects reality (i.e. you aren't going to crit one hit of full auto every single time with 33.34% crit rate, but over the course of a fight 1/3 of the hits from your full autos will crit. This is also why I hate statistics).

 

 

Plasma Grenade -> Full Auto -> Grav round -> Grav round -> Grav round -> High Impact Bolt -> Demolition round -> Full auto rotation

 

Off topic but that's a horrible rotation. Plasma grenade is so ammo inefficient without reserve powercell =/ Usually I use it with reserve powercell > tech override when Mortar Volley is down during solo play and otherwise kinda just leave it alone. Also doing HIB without 5 Grav Rounds first is doing less damage =/

 

The primary point I am making is as follows: Nobody can accurately assert that one spec is superior to another at this time and there has been a lot of pure speculation based on educated guesses and assumptions, valid or no about what the tooltips mean

 

 

FTFY but yeah mostly agreed.

 

 

ACTUALLY what we could do is find strong bounty hunter/commando mobs and let them grav round us and see how it works. Look at your armor/dmg reduction before engaging a mob, let them get 5 stacks and see if the character sheet has the armor rating changed. If its reducing 20% of your armor then that could very well be our answer assuming that Grav round from the mobs is the same as Grav round from a PC. Alternatively you could duel a player(can you duel from same faction?) and apply the same test (again assuming things work the same against PCs as they do against NPCs)